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CB400 Project
beemsquar:
Hi all, This is my first ever motorcycle build and I thought I would share the journey with the community as you have been very helpful with your advice and maybe it will help others doing similar projects.
I acquired the vehicle on the 03/07/15 from an old guy who had had it since 2012 and had started to do some jobs on it, (badly as it turns out).
It read 46000 on the odometer and looked like this in the advert.
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I went to see the bike and it was already partly dismantled with what I think are constar wheels? off another bike.
I spent a good hour looking over it to see if the major bits were there, the guy started it up and it sounded OK, apart from blowing from the exhaust, which he told me was because they weren't tightened up yet. He assured me that he had acquired a lot of parts and everything was there. Knowing that I wanted a project bike that needed some TLC we haggled and I took her off his hands for £900.
I've set myself a loose budget of £1000 to rebuild and no more than 10 months to complete so I can ride it next summer.
I plan on doing most if not all the work myself , but might need some advice and guidance along the way.
tom400f:
This is going to be interesting to follow. Good luck with her.
beemsquar:
Day 1
Ok I got it home, pulled her out the back of the van down the ramp with no brakes attached and the bloody back wheel fell off nearly squashing me underneath!
Luckily my neighbour was passing and helped me carry it into the garage.
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Let the work commence!
I got to stripping it down straight away, I had already ordered and received a haynes manual and a clymer manual for the process and started taking LOTS of pictures so I now where things go later.
By the end of day 1 it looked like this.
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on closer inspection there were a few problems emerging, 1.the side stand had been badly repaired and was welded at the wrong angle so the bike is leaning excessively. I will sort this out at a later date once the frame is stripped. 2.the centre stand has been hacked off and is in one of the boxes of bits!
I decided that once I had removed and stored some of the frame components, I would rebuild the original wheels that he supplied with the bike as my first big job, so I could work out the stance of the bike and sort that stand angle out!
beemsquar:
Cheers tom400f, i'm not to far along with it yet, and have already ran into a few problems, I guess all is to be expected with an old bike.
Hopefully I can keep a good momentum going!
beemsquar:
Day 2
Ok while stipping her down I had noticed a few things, the front headlamp is off a suzuki, and while inspecting the exhaust it is blown on two downpipes and on the collector box, and there is no muffler! How did I miss that.
There's a chunk of my budget gone already :-[
Ash from this forum had kindly sent me a dropbox link with a parts list, which I have been going through in the evenings to see what I'm missing and the list is getting longer! I was originally going to restore to factory condition using all genuine parts, but I'm not sure my budget will stretch that far. It seems the old girl has had a harder life than I first thought.
I think I might modify it into a cafe racer/brat style bike, still using the best original parts with some OEM stuff now.
Ok wheel job today, the PO had just had the original rims chromed, but it was a terrible job and flaking off already, so Ive decided to get them blasted and possibly powder coated satin black?
They don't look bad in this but they are pretty crap in person.
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Here's the hubs once removed
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